Where laws themselves
are so violent, it is no wonder that an administration should be
tyrannical.
Lest the cry of an oppressed people should reach the throne, the council
forbade, under severe penalties, all noblemen or gentlemen of landed
property to leave the kingdom, a severe edict, especially where the
sovereign himself resided in a foreign country. Notwithstanding this act
of council, Cassilis first, afterwards Hamilton and Tweddale, went
to London, and laid their complaints before the king. These violent
proceedings of Lauderdale were opposite to the natural temper of Charles
and he immediately issued orders for discontinuing the bonds and the
writs of law-burrows. But as he was commonly little touched with what
lay at a distance, he entertained not the proper indignation against
those who had abused his authority: even while he retracted these
oppressive measures, he was prevailed with to avow and praise them in
a letter which he wrote to the privy council. This proof of confidence
might fortify the hands of the ministry; but the king ran a manifest
risk of losing the affections of his subjects, by not permitting even
those who were desirous of it to distinguish between him and their
oppressors.
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